


Disquieting Metamorphasis

by boomtowne



Category: Haunted Mansion (Ride)
Genre: Backstory, Character Death, Disney, Gen, Ghost Shenanigans, Ghosts, Headcanon, Headcanon Backstory, Mild Language, Multi, Shenanigans, Spooky, i'm gonna keep updating the tags with each chapter so uh it may get a bit chaotic aksjdhfj
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27649336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomtowne/pseuds/boomtowne
Summary: For decades, the Gracey Mansion has served as a retirement home for nine hundred and ninety-nine happy haunts. However as of late Master Gracey's job as become increasingly difficult. With only him and his maid Eleanor working, keeping up with the care of the ghouls is quite the handful. When a mysterious cloaked ghost arrives at the mansion, Eleanor realizes that between the several prominent ghosts who had retired at the mansion, there may be more to the story. As tensions rise between the ghosts they realize that they have to reconnect and fix their previous mistakes.
Relationships: Emily | Beating Heart Bride/Hatbox Ghost (Disney)
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

As Master Gracey peered outside the mansion window, he watched as little raindrops slid down the glass. The downpour had been going relentlessly for hours now and it showed no signs of stopping yet. A bolt of lightning struck the horizon and following the flash the familiar rumble of thunder began to shake the mansion grounds. It was rather quiet, well aside from the storm happening outside. However if you listened close enough, you could hear the graveyard ghost's party continuing.

Gracey turned his head around to look at the wall opposite of him. Various portraits of the mansion's guests hung on the walls and one of himself hung there as well. Though the portrait had been painted well over a century ago, Gracey looked exactly as he did when it was created. The candles hung on the walls flickered, almost rhythmically with the rain. For a moment Master Gracey was relaxed, and then that moment passed.

"Master Gracey!" he winced hearing his name shouted. As he turned his head towards where the voice came from he saw his maid, Eleanor, dashing down the hall frantically. "Master Gracey! Master Gracey! Master Gracey!" she continuously shouted his name in an attempt to get his attention, sadly for Master Gracey he had gotten her attention already. He sighed as she skidded to a halt in front of him, panting. She leaned forward and placed her hands on her knees and began catching her breath. 

"Master Gracey!" she shouted once more.

"Okay! Eleanor I heard you the first thousand times you shouted my name, what is it?" he replied unenthusiastically. 

"I overslept! I'm so, so, so sorry! I was cleaning the ballroom last night and I didn't go to bed until it was really late! I'm so sorry!!" she pleaded, speaking at what felt to be one hundred miles per hour.

"Eleanor, it's alright you're forgiven but please quiet it down," Master Gracey scolded her "You're gonna give me a migraine and you'll disturb the other ghosts." Eleanor quickly stood up straight and looked at Master Gracey. 

"Oh! Right!" she shouted, but then realized her volume and cleared her voice. Eleanor sheepishly tucked a fly piece of hair behind her ear afterwards. Eleanor had been working in the mansion for about eight months now and though she was eager to help her loudness more than often brought consequences. 

"Gracey!" another voice shouted his name from down the hall. He whipped his head around to see who it was and this time it was Medusa. 

"Good job, Eleanor," Gracey muttered under his breath "Your shouting probably angered Medusa." Eleanor looked up at Gracey, nervously.

Medusa stomped down the hall furiously, her face full of anger. Her fists were clenched and her teeth were bared. Though she shared a name with the well known Greek myth, Medusa shared no relation. She only began using the name after her death due to the fact that she bore a striking resemblance to the woman in appearance and power. 

"Medusa!" Master Gracey smiled and gave a nervous chuckle as the woman approached him "How are you today?" he asked as politely as possible. Eleanor turned her head slightly and she could tell that he was nervous. And if Eleanor could tell, it was crystal clear that Medusa saw as well. 

"I  _ was _ doing just wonderfully!" she began with a snarl. "Right until those damn hitchhikers went and almost wrecked the entire graveyard!"

Master Gracey let out a sigh of disappointment, "What did they do this time?"

"What do you mean ' _ what did they do this time _ '? It's the same situation every time!" she shouted. "Gus starts getting into trouble and Ezra makes an attempt to fix the situation but accidentally makes it worse and since he seemingly lacks a brain he doesn't think to call for Phineas who's the only one of the three to have any amount of logic!" she spewed her rant, waving her arms around as if she was illustrating the story midair. 

"Alright, I promise I'll talk to them" Gracey sighed, a hint of dismissiveness could be heard in his voice. 

"No, you listen to me," Medusa began. Eleanor winced, preparing for what was to come "I have filed complaint after complaint about those three and yet you have done nothing, so when you say ' _ I'll talk to them _ '," Medusa grabbed a hold of the collar of Gracey's shirt and pulled him closer to her face. Her brunette curls began to twitch and within a moment her hair had transformed into a writhing clump of snakes and her smooth skin turned to scales. " _ You better talk to them _ " she hissed threateningly. 

Before Gracey could even respond, Medusa let go of him and stormed off. Her head of snakes relaxed and turned back into her brown curls and her scales became skin once more. She then disappeared from the view of Master Gracey and Eleanor. 

"Well then..." Eleanor said, elongating her words. A small chuckle escaped after she spoke. Master Gracey leaned up against the wall and crossed his arms. 

He sighed "I can't do anything to please these ghouls can I?" 

"I can go talk to the hitchhikers for you, if you'd prefer," Eleanor offered.

"No, no, it's fine I can talk to them later today," Gracey replied "The problem is that no matter what happens, the hitchhikers will always be the hitchhikers and thus they will be the definition of trouble. No matter how many times we tell them they're just gonna get themselves into more trouble."

"Right, right" she nodded in response.

"Oh wait, I have something for you to do though," Master Gracey went into the inner pocket of his suit and pulled out an average sized book and handed it to her "deliver that to Madame Leota for me."

"No can do!" she stated enthusiastically, turning dramatically and beginning to walk away.

"Wait, wait, you remember what I said right?" Gracey questioned her as she made her way down the hall, book in hand. 

"Yep! ' _ Don't talk to Madame Leota _ ' is what you said!" Eleanor repeated his previous words and she disappeared from his vision. 


	2. Chapter 2

The walk from the portrait hallway to Madame Leota's room wasn't long at all. Hardly a couple minutes. On the normal day that she would drop things off for the Madame, she would leave the item on the floor next to the door, knock and walk away without even getting a look at the strange woman. She was a little confused. Why on earth was Master Gracey so instant on her not speaking to Leota? What happened? Regardless of what happened Master Gracey and Madame Leota clearly had bad blood.

Eleanor arrived at the door to the Madame's room. Though the entire mansion was ornately designed and decorated from head to toe Leota's door alone was more elegant than the typical guest rooms. There was something off though. The door was cracked open. Ever so slightly, like Leota had left and hadn't bothered to fully close it behind her. Eleanor was able to get a small peek at the Madame's room, it was small but that small crack fueled Eleanor's curiosity. Nervously, she lightly tapped the door, pushing it open more so she could get a better look inside. There seemed to be no sign that Leota was in the room. 

The room was huge, or at least huge compared to the other rooms in the mansion. The normal guest rooms in the endless hallway were rather small and compact. Sure there was enough space for you to move around and have all your possessions but now that Eleanor was looking at Leota's Eleanor finally realized how small the others were. A large rug with an intricate pattern covered the majority of the floor and in the center of the room sat a table. On the table sat a crystal ball. Hanging, no floating in the air towards the ceiling were instruments. 

Once again, Eleanor felt curiosity begin to creep up her spine and so she took a couple steps into the room, and then a couple more, and then some more. She continued taking steps into the room until she reached the table. Upon examining it, the entire table was covered in books and papers. Not exactly what Eleanor was expecting from Madame Leota. What caught her eye were the tarot cards sitting on the table. Though most were scattered around with the backs facing up there were three that were placed neatly in a line face up.

The first tarot card was labeled as 'The Fool', the second was a bit harder to read as it was upside down but with a bit of head tilting Eleanor could see it said 'The Lovers', the third and final card was labeled 'The High Priestess'. Eleanor really had no idea what any of this tarot card mumbo jumbo really meant but if those cards were right side up they had to mean something right? She took notice of the crystal ball in the center of the table, it swirled colors of purple and yellow and if Eleanor listened carefully she could hear it whisper to her. Spells? Omens? Prophecies? Warnings? Eleanor had no idea what it was saying to her but her ears didn't deceive her!

"Can I help you?" Eleanor jumped and let out a small shriek as she heard a voice interrupt her thoughts. Eleanor whipped around and faced the door where a figure stood, ever so slightly illuminated from the hallway's candlelight. It was Madame Leota herself. Standing at average height she wore a purple colored dress with a white button up shirt and over top of the shirt was a vest. Her sleeves were rolled up. Her hair was dark and wavy and there were two small strands of light green that were tangled in the blue. 

"Well, I-err… um..." Eleanor stuttered, not sure what to say. ' _Crap! Master Gracey directly told me not to speak to her and now I'm in a situation where I have to!_ ' she thought.

"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" Leota asked, crossing her arms and leaning into the door frame. 

"I... I was just dropping this book off for you! And I err- um... I saw your door was open and I got curious and um..." Eleanor rambled, holding the book out to the Madame. Leota walked up to Eleanor and took the book from her hands. 

"Ah, so you're working for the old man in charge, huh?" Leota questioned with a smile, flipping through the books pages and setting it down on the table. 

"Old man? Master Gracey can't be that old can he?" Eleanor asked, putting her arms behind her back and rocking back and forth on her toes. 

"Well kid, Dorian's not much younger than me and I'd consider myself old," Leota chuckled "Anyways, enough of that, thank you for bringing me this book."

"Oh it's no problem at all! I'm just doing my job!" she began playing with her fingers as she spoke out of nervousness. 

"Well it's nice to finally meet you..." Leota paused for a moment "Oh jeez, I don't know your name do I? Mind introducing yourself?"

"I'm Eleanor!" she held out her hand, waiting for Leota to shake it which she did. 

"It's a pleasure to meet you, would you mind staying for a chat?" she asked politely.

"Well I doubt that Gracey has anything for me to do so I don't see why not!" Eleanor made her way over to one of the chairs and sat down in it. It was extremely comfortable! Though as she settled down in her chair she began to become a bit confused. With the way Master Gracey talked about her, she didn't expect for Madame Leota to be this nice and inviting. Sure, Eleanor didn't know what to expect from her at all, but this definitely wasn't one of the little ideas she had thought of when imagining Leota. 

"I hate to pry, but can I ask what the book is for?" Eleanor questioned. Leota sat down in her chair and looked at the maid across from her. 

"Hmm? Sorry I didn't catch that" Leota used her abilities to pull all the tarot cards towards her with a wave of her hand. The cards neatly stacked in front of her.

"The book I brought you, what's it for?" Leota began shuffling the tarot cards in her hands. 

"Oh the book, it's a cookbook! I've realized that I probably need a hobby other than... well all of this" she motioned to her room with her hands, the tarot cards continuing to shuffle themselves even without her touch. 

"I feel silly for thinking this," Eleanor began, scratching the back of her head "but I was thinking that it would be some sort of spell book."

Leota let out a small laugh in response "It's okay, I can see why you'd think that." The two laughed once more. 

"So, when did you start working for Dorian? And I gotta know, what made you want to work for him in the first place?" Leota politely questioned, finally done shuffling the cards. She grabbed them from midair and placed them down on the table in a neat stack and pushed them aside. 

"Well, about eight months ago I died but what's weird about that is the fact I arrived in the afterlife here in the mansion," Eleanor began explaining "I opened my eyes and there I was in the mansion's foyer and not only that but I have no memory of my life at all. So you can imagine how confused I was when I woke up dead, in a random mansion, with the only bit of information I have about myself being my name, Eleanor."

"Wow, that's incredibly interesting," Leota said, entranced in Eleanor's story. 

"After I fully accepted the fact I was dead I got super depressed and I moped around the mansion for about a week feeling sorry for myself, and then the previous maid quit and I got an idea. I could take up being a maid here since ya'know where else would I go? Plus maybe working would help me take my mind of my situation." Eleanor continued "So the next morning, Master Gracey woke up and saw me decked out in the uniform already having begun cleaning the ballroom. Of course he was a bit upset, seeing as he hadn't hired me to begin with but he ended up just letting me work and so here we are today!" 

"Quite interesting," Leota said quietly "Cases of post mortem amnesia I wouldn't say are a rarity, but they certainly aren't a walk in the park to find, do you mind if I ask you a few questions? For scientific purposes of course." With a wave of Leota's hand she made a notepad and pen teleport over to her. 

"I don't see why not!" Eleanor shuffled in her chair a bit before settling once more as Leota began to question her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 2 everyone! I wrote both chapters 1 and 2 in a night and while I'm writing this its literally midnight and i'm exhausted, but regardless I hope you all enjoyed! 
> 
> ((also if yall want a bit of a hint for leotas backstory i suggest looking into those tarot cards that were on the table))

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaand welcome to the rewrite! For the most part things are gonna remain the same as last time but the writings gonna be better, minor plot points are gonna be arranged, and shorter chapters! I don't really have much to say here but I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!


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